


The Eyes of Blenheim: Chapter One

by itstonedme



Series: The Eyes of Blenheim [1]
Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: AU, Edwardian Period, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-10
Updated: 2014-01-10
Packaged: 2018-01-08 06:54:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1129650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itstonedme/pseuds/itstonedme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Orlijah does <i>Downton Abbey</i>.  Orlando is a wealthy English duke married to the American heiress Olivia.  They have two young children.  Elijah is a recent hire, serving as the duke's personal valet.  Inspired by a visit to Blenheim Palace, which serves as the setting of this story.  The dirty bits will come, just not in the first few chapters.  Originally posted on LJ <a href="http://itstonedme.livejournal.com/91977.html#cutid1">here</a> with reader comments.</p>
<p>Disclaimer: Fiction.  No disrespect intended to actual persons. </p>
<p>Feedback: Always welcomed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Eyes of Blenheim: Chapter One

**Chapter One**

 

_Oxfordshire, April 1905_

Elijah awakens slowly, much like the dawn creeping through the drawn curtains of his bedroom window. The sound of a door closing in the hall outside his room is what first nudges him from sleep, the quiet footfalls trailing away as the cook heads off to the kitchen to start the morning's baking. He briefly opens his eyes – just a fleeting check of the light in his room – enough to tell him that daylight is approaching. Soon, the palace will be alive with noise and activity as grounds workers and contractors resume their restorations. It is time to get up.

He sits for a moment in his sleeveless shirt and bed shorts, feet on the floor, before reaching for his eye glasses and carefully wrapping each wire arm around his ears. Even in the low light, the room takes on sharpness. He finds the lamp by his bedside and turns it on. He knows he is fortunate to work in a manor as economically endowed as Blenheim Palace; even in the housekeeping wing where the staff live, electrical wiring has been installed, making his life one of modern convenience. Others in his position who work in many of the realm's great estates are not so fortunate; the lack of estate funds has delayed major improvements, and the downstairs quarters for the staff are still largely illuminated by gaslight. Furthermore, as valet to the designated heir of the manor, the 9th Duke of Marlborough, his room has its own – although small – closeted toilet and sink. This is certainly an advantage.

After washing up, he dresses in the white shirt he had pressed the night before, the suit he had brushed and hung on the back of the door, and the shoes he had handsomely polished. He straightens his bow tie and cuffs and combs his hair, checking himself in the small worn mirror above his dresser. Pulling his jacket straight, he opens his door and leaves.

"Good morning," he says to those of the house staff already gathered for breakfast in the kitchen when he arrives. 

"Good morning, Mr. Wood," comes the reply from Mrs. Blanchett, the housekeeper. There are a few echoing chirps from the various house maids and footmen, most subdued.

His relations with the household help are modest at best. This is not due to any lack of civility on his part as much as it is to circumstance. He is one of the newest to join the staff, having been there for little more than four weeks. He is very young to hold such an esteemed position as the lord's valet, and so there is a suspicion among the others of favoritism for some as yet unknown reason. Mrs. Blanchett and Noble, the butler, have had their noses put out too because they suffered from the assumption that their seniority would allow their opinions of the applicants for the position. ("I will interview my own valet," the duke had informed the pair of them. "That includes everyone who applies for the position. Thank you kindly for offering, but there you have it.") Both Noble and Blanchett most certainly would have considered an older, more experienced man who could have helped guide the young duke on matters of deportment and circumstance. 

Elijah is exceedingly circumspect in the information he imparts about the duke's comings and goings, which hasn't ingratiated him to the lesser staff who are always mining for gossip. Even Mrs. Blanchett, who holds herself above such chatter, would appreciate a tidbit here or there, anything to explain the great chill that appears to be forming between the young duke and his very wealthy, very beautiful wife. It is the inheritance of Lady Olivia, as Her Grace prefers the staff to call her (being American-born, it is presumed she is averse to too much class distinction) that has saved Blenheim from destitution and the great family name from shame.

So this is the situation Elijah finds him in this morning and every morning. There is always the tendency, within these manors, for the household staff to spy – on themselves, on their employers, on visitors great and small – because for some, it fills the littleness of their lives. For others, however, it is something much more. For those collusive few, it allows them to exercise the fact that information is power.

* 

As is the custom each morning, Elijah knocks at the duke's bedroom door before entering, although he does not wait to be invited in. That is because His Grace is usually still sleeping. 

The 9th Duke of Marlborough, whose given name is Jonathan but who goes by his mother's preferred name of Orlando, is twenty-nine years of age, going on forty. His upbringing has hastened his maturity, imposing responsibilities upon him that many of his contemporaries have struggled with but at which he has excelled. Orlando's lineage is one of great achievement and great scandal, going back two hundred years as far as historic privilege is concerned. Over the past century, however, the estate has been beset with misfortune upon misfortune, mostly of the economic variety and most brought on by spendthrift predecessors. When Orlando came into his entailment upon his father's death, he was barely of age and largely penniless.

To remedy his situation, Orlando sought a rich wife in America where the fashion among the _nouveau riche_ was to capture a little something of the _ancien riche,_ if one can coin such a phrase, which meant a title. Thus, he identified a likely family of brazen new wealth and negotiated a marriage with the father of the beautiful Olivia, one that guaranteed his estate's future and made Olivia a duchess. Two children – a boy and a girl – followed, and for Orlando, the future of his family name and title looked very good indeed. With his wife's new money, he set upon restoring Blenheim to the glory befitting its history, one that is singular among all the great houses of the nation in that it has been deemed a palace even though Orlando is neither a royal nor a cleric. It's a project that is ongoing as this tale unfolds.

Elijah opens the door with one hand, balancing on his arm the silver melon tea service prepared for two in the instance that the duchess has spent the night in the duke's company. He carries the tray to the writing table beneath the window in the sitting room and places it there. If the draperies have been closed, he whisks them open, thus illuminating the room and casting sufficient light through the archway to the bedroom proper. 

If the double doors to the adjoining bedroom are closed, he does not enter or knock, as this signifies that Her Grace is within. However, the duchess has been present on only one occasion during the time he has been the duke's valet. If the double doors are open, which is most always the case, he proceeds into the bedroom and opens its long draperies, first one side and then the other. This usually elicits a moan from the duke, who is not known to awaken with any more haste than Elijah. Elijah returns to the sitting room and strains the breakfast tea into a single bone china cup, careful to add the milk first, then adding one sugar and a stir before bringing it to the duke's bedside table. When he is through, he stands and waits, hands folded before him.

"Have you had your morning tea?" the duke asks this day, scrubbing his face with both hands as he sits up. "And good morning."

"Good morning, Your Grace, I have, thank you," Elijah replies.

"Have another and sit with me while I wake up," the duke says, motioning to an old farthingale chair at the wall across from his bed. "Remind me of the work I have scheduled for today."

Once seated with a cup and saucer upon his lap, feet square on the floor and spine stiff, Elijah relates, from memory, that the stone for the paths in the west gardens is to be delivered today, that the blueprints for the Italian garden on the south lawn will need review, that re-paneling of the library will be starting, that His Grace's first cousin (once removed) will be travelling up from London with a friend for a weekend of trout fishing in the main lake and that Her Grace is hoping they might all dine together this evening. 

"Oh, bollocks," Orlando sighs. "Another dinner of political boredom and fish. Would you mind running me a bath, Wood, so that I can give the coming day's dirt a fresh canvas?" 

Elijah gets up and goes into the en suite, turning the taps to fill the tub, emptying a half cup of skin salts into the stream of water, and turning on the steam to heat the linen bar where the towels are hanging. 

As he turns to leave, he comes face to face with the duke, who is coming through the bathroom door fully naked. Elijah abruptly looks away and steps to one side to let the duke pass.

"There's no need to blush, Wood," Orlando says, lifting the lid to the toilet and angling his cock for a piss. "I suspect an aristocratic prick is just as ordinary as everyone else's. Take off your jacket. I will need you to wash my back, if you don't mind."

"Your Grace," Elijah nods and leaves the bathroom, removing his jacket and hanging it on the carved back of the farthingale chair. He undoes the cuffs on his shirt and rolls up each sleeve.

"Bring my tea," Orlando calls out. 

As a rule, the duke bathes alone. As a rule, Elijah runs the water, heats the towels and then returns to lay out the duke's clothes after leaving the duke to undress and attend to his own washing. From bed to bath to dressing robe, Elijah is, as a rule, not in the room. 

So this is all very startling for Elijah. Uncomfortably familiar, in a social sort of way. He returns with a refreshed cup of tea. 

Orlando is settling himself gingerly into the hot water. "Ahhhh," he smiles contentedly. "There, on the shelf where I can reach it," he says of the china Elijah is holding. "Is there a tub in your quarters?" he asks as a conversational pleasantry because there is barely a door knob or horse trough within Blenheim he has not personally inspected over the years.

"There is," Elijah replies, although it would hardly compare to the gold-footed porcelain basin currently warming the duke. There is one cast iron tub that all staff use, along with a schedule of when. If a cleaning is needed outside of those hours, it takes place within the wash basin in one's room or with the hose over in the stables, warm weather permitting.

"Would you know if my wife has arisen?" Orlando asks, reclining and scooping water onto his chest. 

From where he stands at the wall beside the duke's head, Elijah is able to plainly see all the duke's parts, both private and public, splayed in relaxed fashion beneath the water. The duke is correct: a prick of noble birth cuts no smarter a figure than one from the other side of the hedgerow, although as far as Elijah is concerned, the one Orlando possesses is suitably and pleasingly shaped much like the rest of him. At the prime of his adulthood, the duke is, as a few of the housemaids are wont to say, a specimen. 

"I have not seen her," Elijah replies, "although Otto was preparing to take her tea as I was leaving the kitchen."

"Yes, I imagine her days have become as busy as mine in their own way," Orlando observes. "I am grateful that she is taking care of the interior decorations. It gives her a say in how and where we are spending her money. Fabrics and bric-a-brac don't much interest me."

Elijah is mildly surprised by this disclosure; Orlando is not one for speaking about personal matters or family members, although his tongue can be quite unbridled and clever about nearly everyone else. 

"And what about the children?" Orlando asks. "Any racket there?"

"None that I am aware of," Elijah replies.

Orlando picks up the wet hand towel and wrings it before passing it and a bar of Pears to Elijah. "If you would be so kind," he says, sitting forward.

If one were to ask him (and one never would), Elijah would have thought that the duchess should be the one to help the duke with this aspect of his toilet, if help were needed at all, since the cleansing of one's back is not a difficulty, this he knows from personal experience. He suspects that she has performed this duty up until now, and why she should stop so that he's asked to step in is a puzzlement of sorts. He lathers the cloth and stoops to apply it, but his eyes catch on the scar running a good length of the duke's spine. He clears his throat. "Should I avoid your injury, Your Grace?"

Orlando turns his head towards Elijah. "That old thing, heavens, no. A good rub will do it and me a world of good, loosen all the knots."

Tentatively, Elijah begins to wash the duke's back, making sure that there is a constant barrier of wet fabric between his palm and the skin it is cleansing. 

"I shall not break, Wood," Orlando says. "Scrub harder if you would."

His Grace is remarkably fit compared to Elijah's own meagre frame, although Elijah wouldn't be able to describe what his own back looks like, considering it is something he's never really seen except in aged mirrors. But there are muscles beneath his hand that he doubts he possesses, lean but not sinewy, smoothly contoured and firm. All in all, he is envious. He renews his efforts with more pressure this time, and the duke flexes his shoulders before letting them drop.

"Good grief, that feels marvelous," Orlando murmurs, head hanging forward. "I suppose you are curious as to how that scar was won."

"Only if Your Grace cares to share."

"No secret. I fell off an ornery horse and caught a rock. The doctors tell me I'm bloody lucky to be walking. Can you imagine the predicament I would have been in rolling around this monstrosity of a home in a wheeling chair?"

"I cannot, Your Grace," Elijah replies, horrified at the prospect of his patron, in all this vigor, being beset in such a fashion.

Conversation ceases until there is only the sound of water sluicing about the tub and over the duke. Elijah washes and then rinses His Grace's back, which only serves to heat Elijah's cheeks because the moment presently seems to have become intimate in the extreme for him. Why, he cannot readily identify because it is merely a man's back after all, and part of his role is to ensure that it is a back satisfactorily cleaned. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that the duke has taken to sighing his satisfaction at how enjoyable he is finding the experience. That Elijah's hands should be the reason only serves to further inflame Elijah's cheeks. "Is that sufficient, Your Grace?" he finally asks.

"Actually, it is not, Wood," the duke replies, lifting his head and angling it Elijah's direction. "It was too successful a tonic for me to wish it over. However," and he reaches to take the cloth which Elijah gives him, "the day awaits. I shall be down for breakfast within twenty, if you could let the kitchen know. Don't bother clearing the tea just yet."

Elijah takes his leave and dresses in his jacket once more before stepping out into the hall at exactly the moment that the duchess is coming down it. "Your Grace," he bows. She is radiant, her hair pinned casually, her dress uncluttered, her face clean and undressed. She and the duke are a striking couple, full of beauty and stature and civility, everything one would hope for in one's employment, and their children are no less beautiful. Elijah is truly fortunate to have landed his position. 

"Good morning, Wood," she smiles. "I trust the duke has awakened?"

"Yes, Your Grace. He is just finishing his bath before taking his breakfast in the dining room."

"Good," she says pleasantly. "Then I'll be able to review with him some changes to the wall coverings I'd like for the great drawing room."

"I'm sure he'll be most interested in your plans," Elijah says.


End file.
